


Mind Tells the Heart (to Linger On)

by sonata_de_morte



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: Canon: Fullmetal Alchemist: Conqueror of Shamballa, Fix-It, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-29
Updated: 2013-09-29
Packaged: 2017-12-28 00:18:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/985365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sonata_de_morte/pseuds/sonata_de_morte
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The days slip past effortlessly, and Roy thinks that eventually he’ll get used to the hole in his heart. He will probably never fill it, but he’s learned to compensate for a missing eye, hasn’t he? How hard can it be to deal with a holey heart?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mind Tells the Heart (to Linger On)

**Author's Note:**

> This is my Conqueror of Shamballa Fix-it fic. Because Roy and Ed needed a reunion.

_Now I'm off to dream_

_It's the only ease that comforts me_

_Is this my old shape? My mind is away_

_How long have you been gone?_

_The cold winter’s aged the soft of your face_

_And I can’t move on_

_-Milo Greene “Autumn Tree”_

 

Looking back, Roy thinks it’s rather fitting that his motivation disappeared as soon as Edward did. For those two years he often told himself that he would be fine if he could just _see_ Edward. Just see him once, just enough to know that he was alive and still brilliant. But now, now Roy knows better. Seeing Ed was torture because he is very much still alive and very much still brilliant. And he’s taller and his hair is longer, and Roy can imagine what it would look like spilling down his back and over his shoulders, or across a pillow. He can imagine what it would feel like to touch it, and that is pure agony. 

Because Edward is gone again. He streaked across the sky in a blaze of glory, the same way he entered, and Roy is left bereft.

They try to get him to stay in Central, to take up his post again and help with the rebuilding, and for a while he does. He tells himself that it’s because it’s the right thing to do. This is his country, after all, and he took an oath to serve it in whatever ways he could. And this is _rebuilding_ , which is a long shot away from the destruction he usually is called to do in defense of his country and its occasionally twisted ideals.

So he stays for a month and then two, but soon enough the solitude and seclusion of his little place in the North are calling for him again. Hawkeye knows he is leaving before he does, and she sighs and hands him a train ticket, her eyes speaking loud enough that she doesn’t have to. He knows that she knows; the woman has always been able to see right through him.

“He could still come back, sir,” she murmurs as she sees him off, keeping her eyes on the approaching train.

Roy blinks his good eye and finds a smile for her. “Then you’ll know where to send him,” he replies.

They don’t hug because after the years they’ve spent in each other’s company, it’s not necessary. Roy can read fondness and worry in her salute, and he knows that she can read the half assed platitudes in his.

* * *

The North is just as he left it: cold, somewhat desolate, and maddeningly quiet. The howling winds have long ago faded into background noise for him, and Roy spends his nights inside, wrapped in a blanket in front of the fire, sipping tea that has been liberally spiked with his supply of whisky.

Using alchemy has been coming more naturally to him of late, and he wonders if it has something to do with seeing how easy it still was for Edward. Something about that hardheaded genius has always inspired Roy to want to be better than he is. And it’s no different now that the brilliant, beautiful boy is gone again. Maybe it’s because Roy sees him in his dreams, and wakes wanting to taste that mocking grin.

The days slip past effortlessly, and Roy thinks that eventually he’ll get used to the hole in his heart. He will probably never fill it, but he’s learned to compensate for a missing eye, hasn’t he? How hard can it be to deal with a holey heart?

He also thinks he might be a bit drunk at this point, and the wind howls and thumps at his door.

“Mustang, you son of a bitch! I know you’re in there!”

Roy frowns and peers down at his cup. He didn’t think he’d put _that_ much whisky in, but perhaps his depth perception is worse than usual? Because he swears that sounded like…

“Open the goddamned door! I’m freezing my ass off out here.”

In something of a daze, Roy gets up and moves to the door, pulling it open enough so that light from his front room spills out into the snowy haze, falling upon the face that Roy has seen every night for almost three years in his mind. “Hm,” he says. “I might need to consider giving up drinking.” 

And the vision — because he _has_ to be hallucinating this; people shouldn’t be able to go between worlds at all, let alone as many times as Ed has seemed to — gives him a bright grin that is so familiar it _hurts._ “Not gonna argue with you about that,” it says. “But I’m not a hallucination. If I was, I wouldn’t be freezing my fucking balls off. I _hate_ snow, so let me the fuck in.” 

At this point, Roy has given up on caring whether this is real or not. He’ll regret indulging in the morning when the hole in his heart makes itself known again, but for tonight, he can deal with that. He moves back and lets the specter into the small house, closing the door against the frigid wind and leaning against it to stare. It certainly does look like Ed. Same sharp eyes, same ponytail that he’d seen those months ago in Central. Same gleaming silver fingers that reflect the fire light as Ed shucks off his coat and gloves, leaving them in a dripping pile on the floor. 

It is so quiet now that Roy can hear his heartbeat, and he’s not sure what to say or do. He doesn’t want to break this illusion. 

Finally, the Ed-vision turns and looks at him, weariness in those eyes and in the way he holds himself. He rakes those amber eyes over Roy, lingering on the patch for a moment as most people do, and then he huffs. “Look,” he says. “I know this is weird as shit, but can we not do this now? I don’t know if you know, and you probably don’t because how could you, but crossing the Gate really takes it out of a person. And you’re a hard person to find, y’know? I came out in Central, and had to wade through a shit load of rubble to find Lieutenant Hawkeye, and she told me you weren’t even there anymore. So I had to get on a fucking _train_ —”

“You spoke to the lieutenant?” Roy interrupts.

Ed looks at him strangely. “Yeah. She offered me a place to stay, but I just...I needed to…”

“Why wouldn’t she call me? If you were really there?”

“If I was really…” Ed shakes his head and sighs. “You’re losing it up here, aren’t you?” He takes two big steps forward, leaning closer until he’s right in Roy’s personal space. He’s definitely grown, and the top of his head could fit so neatly under Roy’s chin if he were to reach out and pull him closer. Edward wiggles automail fingers for a moment and then presses the icy cold hand against the side of Roy’s face. “Does that feel real to you?” he asks. “She didn’t call because I asked her not to. I didn’t want...I didn’t know…” 

It’s not like Ed to be speechless like this, and Roy blinks, for once letting a tiny bit of hope slip into that hole. Maybe...maybe miracles do happen more than once. He reaches up and removes cold steel from his face, brushing his lips over the palm before fitting his fingers into Edward’s. They have not talked about this, about what they might mean to each other, but Roy had seen the flare of _something_ in those eyes months ago when Ed had seen him for the first time in two years, and the memory keeps him warm at night.

“You didn’t know what?” he whispered, voice hoarse in the silence. 

Ed licks his lips, and Roy can see his throat work as he swallows. “If you...would want to see me. I sort of left a mess the last time I was here.”

And Roy smiles for the first time in what feels like too long because for all of Edward Elric’s brilliance, sometimes he can completely miss the point. “Edward, you leave messes wherever you go. It’s a part of your charm.”

A flush spreads over that lovely face, and Ed rolls his eyes. “Oh, fuck off. Convinced I’m real now, are you?” 

“I think I might be,” Roy replies, nodding. “When I dream of you, you usually don’t spend so much time cursing at me.”

To his delight, the flush only darkens. “Yeah?” Ed asks, and his voice only shakes a little, but it is enough to go a long way towards healing that hole in his heart. “What do I do in your dreams then?” 

Roy thinks it’s better to show him, so he pulls him forward and cups his face with his free hand, leaning down to kiss him tenderly. 

* * *

It is much later when they speak again. The fire has burned down low, but Roy doesn’t feel like moving enough to do anything about it. Ed is tucked against his side in the bed, his hair spread out like silk under Roy’s fingers. For a moment he thinks he might be sleeping, but then calloused flesh fingers trace the edge of the eye patch. 

Roy doesn’t need Ed to ask to feel the curiosity there. “I am not…” he falters, looking for something to say, some explanation to give. “I am not as whole a man as you might want,” he settles on. It still feels lacking. 

Ed huffs a laugh against his collarbone and shakes his head. “I haven’t been whole in a long time, dummy,” he murmurs. “And I think...I think maybe we fit together better because our pieces match, you know? Or something like that.”

It is a surprisingly apt metaphor, and Roy can’t help the smile. “I suspect you are right.”

“I’m always right.”

“I think that might be impossible.”

He can practically hear Ed rolling his eyes. “I crossed between worlds, Mustang. I know a little something about the impossible.” 

“Conceded.” There are a million questions that Roy wants to ask, but for now, it is enough to have Ed _here,_ solid and warm, and Roy thinks that the night is impossibly perfect.


End file.
